


I really really really really really dig you

by driedupwishes



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Animals/Pets, Ereri Week, Ereri Week Spring 2016, M/M, Novelist Levi, Paleontologist Eren, So Married, Stressed Eren and Comforting Levi, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, dinosaurs are an animal okay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-11
Updated: 2016-05-11
Packaged: 2018-06-07 18:25:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,558
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6819145
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/driedupwishes/pseuds/driedupwishes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Do you really think I can do this,” Eren asks quietly.</p><p>“I do. I always have,” Levi tells him. “From the day I met you.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	I really really really really really dig you

Once upon a time Levi probably would have wrinkled his nose in disgust at the crowded steps and walkway leading up into the museum, would’ve grumbled angrily about the amount of people taking advantage of the free admission for the day and kept his head low and his shoulders hunched. But with time comes a mellowing of old prickliness, as Isabel would say, and now Levi holds his head high, surveying the crowd around him with a tightness in his chest that sends a warm tingle up and down his spine.

The tightness crawls its way up his throat as he passes one of the banners in the lobby for the new paleontology exhibit which opened earlier that morning, complete with an announcement about the public press conference with the leader of the group who discovered the new dinosaur giving a speech and answering questions later that same day. The time on the banner reads that the conference starts at one and Levi glances to his left, where he knows the large clock face sits, eying the time. It’s only eleven, true, but he’d meant to get to the museum sooner.

 _Someone,_ however, had turned off his alarm, leaving only a sticky note in his absence saying that he’d be at the museum and _don’t be mad mister 3am, you need the rest_.

Levi rolls his eyes even now at the thought of the note, though it’s with a fondness he can’t shake. Around him people mingle and move, the crowds moving in an almost orderly queue toward the front desk where people are getting those surprisingly sturdy paper wristbands you find at traveling fairs, as well as pamphlets about the various displays available in the museum.

It’s an abuse of his sort-of borrowed power, but he wanders straight up to the front desk and ducks around the side, leaning his elbows on the counter to snag a wristband sitting on the receptionist desk beside the poor employee, one of three, who are manning the desk to count attendees. The kid, two weeks into his new job Levi knows, yelps, twisting around from a mother of two to swat at Levi’s hand before realizing who he’s faced with.

“Oh thank god,” the kid – Carson, Levi reminds himself – says, deflating a little as he once more leans over his desk to try and wrangle a little girl into holding still for the wristband. He looks like he’d rather curl up under the desk and cry, but he soldiers on, coaxing the girl with a crook of his finger as he continues. “The last volunteer to take him coffee came out claiming he looked like he was going to combust from stress. Can you-“

Levi rolls the wristband onto his wrist with altogether too much practice, careful in his movements so that the sticky part doesn’t end up uneven. “I’ve got it,” he says with only a little bit of guilt. He should have been here earlier, should have just arrived with him, but then again he hadn’t been the one to change his alarm, so it wasn’t really his fault. Still, though, he swallows thickly, shifting out of the way as the family of three moves on and another gaggle steps up.

“If you need anything, most of the volunteers have radios,” Carson says before turning to face the queue once more. Levi nods to show he’s heard and slips past the crowd, muttering _excuse me_ and _I’m sorry_ as children run around, gleeful and curious, their parents following dutifully along behind.

Levi knows this museum as well as he does the layout of their home and he winds his way through the crowds, nodding at the employees and volunteers he recognizes as he passes them. He makes for the very back of the museum, avoiding the main crowd in the largest exhibit hall, where the new discovery is set up, and he reaches the grey metal door marked _Employees Only_ just as someone in a red volunteer shirt slips out from the other side, her eyes a little wide and her hands clenched at her sides as she jerks to a halt.

“Um,” she say, as he reaches for the door swinging closed behind her. He has to lean around her, as she refuses to budge from in front of him. “I’m sorry, sir, but-“

“ _Levi_ ,” someone shouts behind him. Connie’s voice is easily distinguishable and Levi wonders, as he sometimes does, how Connie ended up working so faithfully and happily in the museum. However it happened, the man loves his job, and he jogs over now, wearing the same red shirt the girl in front of Levi is, clapping him on the shoulder in a friendly way before turning on the girl. “Ali, it’s okay; he’s here to Help.”

Levi does not miss the implied capitalization and he swallows a snort, rolling his eyes a little at the dramatic flair Connie always manages to wriggle in. However the girl nods, obviously still baffled, and Levi doesn’t entirely blame her; keeping nosy children and guests in general out of the back halls and storage areas in the museum with this kind of crowd has to be a pain in the ass. Levi doesn’t envy the security team right now. He reflects that maybe he should have accepted the offer of some kind of nametag that had been extended to him earlier in the week, but he likes his anonymity of winding through the crowd too much to give that up.

“He’s had at least five cups of coffee that we’ve been able to count,” Connie says, not at all apologetic. Levi thinks he could be at least a little concerned, but Connie was working in the museum at the same time as the Dissertation Paper of Senior Year, capitals apparently necessary, so Connie’s probably a little jaded when it comes to the inhalation of increasingly troubling amounts of caffeine in a short amount of time.

Still, however, Levi feels that some concern should be present. But maybe he is just biased.

“How long has he been back there,” Levi asks, already fearing the answer. Connie claps him on the shoulder again and smiles.

“He was here before I was,” is all he says. Levi sighs and gestures at the door, hardly noticing the volunteer’s bafflement as Connie leans forward to unlock the door she had come out of earlier, which had swung closed shortly after Connie called his name. The sensor on the wall beeps quietly as Connie taps his keycard against it and the lock audibly clicks, Levi curling his fingers around the handle and twisting it open with ease.

“Joy,” Levi mutters quietly, a late response to Connie’s statement. Connie’s laughter tries to follow him down the hall and is cut short as the door swings shut behind Levi. The labyrinth that makes up the back hallways and storage rooms of the museum are dim, but they’re always dim, and the sound of his steps echoes slightly as he wanders through, making for the largest storage room, tucked behind the offices on the first floor, where he knows he will find what he is looking for.

Sure enough, as he rounds the corner, there’s a figure among the crates, some of them taller than Levi, bent over one of the work tables. The tables are black topped like a science lab, the surface of which is littered with styrofoam cups, a couple stacked two deep in a semi-circle around the man’s workspace, all within an arm’s reach of him.

Levi clears his throat softly so that he doesn’t startled him before he steps up and speaks. “Hey there, handsome,” he says, fondness catching in his throat with its little sticky barbs, so he clears it, watching the twitch travel from his husband’s shoulders and down his spine. He thinks about how he was kissing that spine as he crawled into bed the night before, eyes closed as he felt around their bed to get from the foot of it where he’d been revising his chapters until he could wriggle under the covers with his love. His husband had been mostly asleep, murmuring senselessly as Levi pressed his lips against his warm familiar skin, which had prompted his love to roll over and pin him to the sheets, where they both fell promptly, fully asleep together.

The thought is a warm one, the memory not an uncommon occurrence, and it makes him smile as Eren pushes away from the table to face Levi, frazzled but still, as he always has been, the most gorgeous being Levi has ever seen.

(Levi ducked through the doors into the lobby of the museum, cursing quietly and indistinctly under his breath at the slippery steps that had almost cost him his life outside. The rain thundered on, coming down in solid sheets until it was hard to see further than ten feet. Levi glanced around, shoulders hunched to his ears as he crossed the room toward the reception desk, inwardly cringing at the fact he had just ducked inside a goddamn _museum_ to kill time.

However the rain outside hadn’t left him many choices and with an hour until he met Isabel for lunch across the street, he had nothing better to do. He pulled out his wallet as he came up to the desk, the room around him silent save for the ticking of the huge clock face he noticed absently on his left-hand side.

“Can I help you?”

Levi cleared his throat, running a hand through his wet bangs to get them out of his face. “I need a ticket,” he said shortly. The receptionist’s face twitched and Levi was pretty sure the employee was biting back a sarcastic _oh really?_ , but he didn’t care. He’d find a fucking bench somewhere in the museum, maybe in front of some skeleton or something, and he’d zone out until Isabel texted him.

(It wasn’t that Levi hated museums, per say, just that they made him feel _alone_. They were a thing of solitude for him, no one able to match his pace, nothing able to keep his interest when the crushing weight of _how fucking lonely_ he was dodged his step at every exhibit. He avoided them, generally speaking, but desperate times and all that bullshit. Besides, it was already a shit day; he didn’t figure a lonely spin through the museum could put him in any worse of a mood.)

The receptionist rattled off the price and Levi handed over his debit card, accepting it back with a pamphlet for the exhibits that he was almost assuredly going to throw away once he turned the corner. He nodded his thanks and slipped away from the desk, rounding the first corner into the main exhibit hall, scanning for a trash-can, when his eyes fell on the group gathering in front of someone across the room.

All thoughts of throwing the pamphlet in his head flew from Levi’s head as the man the group was gathering in front of, supposedly for the tour, clapped his hands together and shrugged his shoulders in a rolling movement that only heightened Levi’s awareness of his broad frame. The pamphlet was crumpled in his hand and then, promptly and absolutely, forgotten about.

“Alright everyone,” the guy called out, his voice clear and ringing, the sweetest sound Levi had ever heard. “My name is Eren and I will be your guide for today! Now, just a reminder; this is not a tour you have to pay for, so anyone else is welcome to join us today.”

Levi’s feet were already moving, even before the tour guide – _Eren_ – had finished his statement. As he drew closer he could see more details, like the way his skin was dark and glowing under the bright museum lights, how his smile was a little crooked as he talked, and how his eyes were green, green-green- _green_ like ancient, precious gems.

Those green eyes flicked over him in the crowd and for just a second, just as long as it took Levi’s heart to lurch upward and lodge in his throat, Levi thought the gaze lingered, green eyes widening for a second before skittering away. It was definitely wishful thinking and the thought was enforced again and again as Eren lead the tour through the museum, transforming from the most gorgeous human being that Levi had ever seen to the most _adorable_ and _fascinating_ and _intelligent_ and motherfucking _funny_ human being Levi had ever seen.

He ended up late to lunch by almost an hour, so caught up in the tour he didn’t notice the missed texts and calls, his phone buzzing soundlessly in his pocket, as forgotten as the pamphlet still clutched in his hand was.

“ _Well_ ,” Isabel snapped later, furiously tapping her foot with her hands on her hips. The staff of the café across the street scowl at Levi from their places behind the counter and in the kitchen, evidently having been charmed by the poor distraught sight Isabel must have been, thinking him dead in a ditch somewhere. “What _exactly_ do you have to say for yourself? _Hm_?”

Levi thought of green-green- _green_ eyes, the flutter of lush dark lashes casting dancing shadows across golden cheeks as he blinked, and didn’t think before he spoke.

“Do you know how much a museum membership is,” he asked, and behind his teeth his tongue was already curling into Eren’s name.)

Eren is, quite honestly, a mess in the hours before his public press presentation. His tie is missing completely, his suit jacket slung haphazardly and left to wrinkle over the edge of a nearby open crate, and Eren’s sleeves are rolled messily to the elbow, ensuring they too will be wrinkled when they are unrolled. On top of that there seems to be saw dust on the knees of his black pants and his hair sticks up, eyes bright and feverish with barely contained panic, giving him the look of some kind of mad scientist and not, as he is supposed to be, a professional Ph.D. paleontologist. It takes Eren almost a full ten seconds of slowly blinking before he finally, fully responds to Levi’s call.

“Shit,” Eren says, which is perhaps not the response Levi was hoping for when he swept in to be the dazzling hero and rescue his husband from his frenzied state of worry, but he’ll make do with what he gets. Eren blinks again and then repeats, “ _shit_ , Levi, you’re here- what time is it? Fuck, am I on soon, I told someone to-“

Levi steps forward, curls his fingers around Eren’s belt, and presses them chest to chest in one fluid, familiar and easy tug. Eren’s babbling cuts off, eyelashes fluttering against his cheeks as he ducks down, making it easier for Levi who is already rising on his tip toes to press a kiss against Eren’s chapped and teeth-worn lips.

Eren melts into the kiss, arms encircling Levi immediately, hands sliding up his sides and his spine as Levi reaches up to cup one hand around Eren’s jaw and curl the other around the back of his neck, brushing his fingers through the short hair of his nape. The kiss is slow, Eren tilting their heads so that their lips slot together perfectly, and one of them sighs, a happy, settling sound. Levi thinks it’s Eren, but with the way he feels warm, positively tingling with contentment and adoration, it could just as easily be _him_.

“Hi,” Eren whispers against his mouth, nuzzling their noses together before moving to brush his nose along Levi’s cheek. From there he presses kisses against the crest of Levi’s cheek, burrowing his face against Levi’s hair when he’s finished with that, his arms around Levi becoming tighter, movements slow but edged with the intensity that speaks of faint desperation.

“Hey there,” Levi whispers back, words nestling against Eren’s collarbone as Levi tucks his face against Eren’s throat and holds him back. The rest of that sentence sticks in his throat, the _how you holding up_ quickly drying cement that scrapes him raw. He hates seeing Eren nervous like this, hates that his brilliant, amazing, incredible husband is trembling in his grip, so worked up when Levi _knows_ he’s going to nail this press conference.

Eren breathes him in and Levi imagines he’s trying to anchor himself in the action. Levi knows the feeling; he remembers the first time one of his books was published, how he didn’t want to hear the reviews, how he coaxed Eren into bed and kissed him quiet when Eren tried to tell him. Eren had let himself be swayed for a while, but eventually he’d pinned Levi down on the couch, gently brushing Levi’s bangs from his eyes with that ridiculously attractive lopsided smile that had never failed to make Levi’s stomach flop.

(“Babe,” Eren said, pressing his lips against Levi’s forehead. Levi flushed with heat, embarrassed at his own behavior, but he just couldn’t _help it_. He hadn’t been this nervous in _ages_ , not since he’d had to stand in a hotel room a floor below the one he knew Eren was in, both of them getting ready on their wedding day, panicking that he’d fuck up their vows or that, like, Eren would change his mind or something. He _hated_ being nervous, he was supposed to be fucking _above this shit_.

“Your book is perfect, Levi,” Eren said, his voice soft and gentle, just like his touch. Levi craned his head a little, pressing up into the lips still ghosting above his forehead, and sighed slowly.

“Shut up,” Levi muttered, gut twisting with sour nervousness. “ _You’re_ fucking perfect.” His voice was tight with fear, but his heart was thumping in his chest, every pulse a beat to remind him how much he fucking adored his husband. He didn’t know what he’d do without Eren. He wouldn’t have written this goddamn book, to start with. He sighed again and then pressed his hands against Eren’s chest, pushing him up until he could sit upright once more. Then he tucked himself forcefully against Eren’s shoulder, breathing in his comforting scent one last time, hand held out in front of them only trembling a little.

“Give me your phone,” Levi said and his voice didn’t shake. “I need to see what they’re saying.”)

Eren deflates, eventually, after the deep breath which he holds onto for a few heartbeats, the gust of his breath tickling along the top of Levi’s ear. Levi kisses at his neck, hands sliding up and down his back reassuringly, and when Eren laughs it’s low and shaky.

“Sorry, I’m just- _God_ , I wish I had let Hannes lead this team now; I don’t know if I can give this speech, y’know?”

Levi pulls back, leaning back on his heels and sliding one hand down to Eren’s waist before he reaches up with that same hand to cradle Eren’s jaw. “I know that you can do this,” he says, instead of agreeing with the statement, Eren’s bright green glittering eyes pulling him in like a force of gravity. A flinch flutters Eren’s eyelashes, but he remains silent as Levi continues. “I know that this is _your_ discovery and that you are going to fucking _blow them away_ out there. You know this information back and forth, up and down, right and left; you could give this speech _backwards_ and it would still make perfect sense, Eren. _You_ are going to be _brilliant_.”

Eren chews on the inside of his lip, something Levi can tell by the shift in his jaw under his hand, and so he waits, all of his weight balanced on the balls of his feet as their height difference has him do often. Finally, after a few long, treacherous seconds, Eren sighs, cheeks dusting pink and eyes molten and glistening.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Eren breathes, chewing on the edge of his bottom lip before he slumps over onto Levi, trusting that he won’t be dropped. Levi grunts faintly against the feeling of Eren’s taller, broader frame pressing down upon his shoulder, but he also likes it, the way Eren clutches at his ribs and groans against his throat, a feeling that tickles.

“Have I ever told you that you’re the most incredible thing to ever happen to me,” Eren asks after several minutes pass, nose and lips pressing against Levi’s throat in a way that makes him shiver and swallow back a gasp. His neck isn’t as sensitive as Eren’s, but _fuck_ if that doesn’t feel good.

“Yeah,” Levi answers, a little more roughly than he means to. He clears his throat while Eren laughs, his husband finally leaning back and straightening so he’s not bend double to hide against Levi’s throat anymore. Levi winds his arms low around Eren’s waist, hands splayed against his spine, and feels himself smile at the memory. “You told me yesterday, I think. When I brought you lunch.”

Eren blinks, eyelashes thick and gorgeous like his eyebrows, brushing his cheeks, and the movement highlights the crevices in the corners of Eren’s eyes as he smiles. “Oh,” he laughs, nose bumping Levi’s cheek as he leans forward to kiss the corner of Levi’s lips in an affectionate peck. “Right, I did. Well, it deserves saying again, I think. _You_ , Levi, are the most incredible thing to ever happen to me.”

Levi’s ribs squeeze at his lungs and he feels dizzy, a crash of thunder racing his spine in a shudder as he huffs out a laugh. “More incredible than finding a new species from the late Triassic period,” Levi asks, gesturing at little at the table behind Eren with a tap of his fingers against his love’s spine. He leans up to kiss the corner of Eren’s lips as he huffs out a little laugh, the same way Levi had, their lips passing a smile back and forth as Eren turns his head to meet him.

“ _Yes_ ,” Eren whispers quietly. “So much more incredible.”

“Sap,” Levi accuses quietly.. He clears his throat before Eren can defend himself, feeling his skin stretched tight over the weight of his feelings, heart a revving engine in his chest. He curls his fingers into the back of Eren’s shirt, pulling it out of his pants a little by accident, unable to care that he’s making his husband a little more rumpled by the second as he adds, lowly, “you’re the most incredible thing to ever happen to _me_ , Eren.”

A snort from Eren knocks their foreheads together gently, the jarring sensation soothed immediately by the hand that slides up Levi’s spine, fingers pressing gently against his shoulder blades as Eren asks, rather coyly, “more incredible than writing a National Best Seller?”

Levi rolls his eyes so hard the room spins, his stomach turning with it as Eren’s body tremors with a laugh. “Yeah,” he murmurs, feeling his throat tighten as Eren’s thumb swipes across the top knob of his spine. “Way, way better. Thousands of times more incredible in fact.”

Eren’s slow exhale maps a path down Levi’s jaw and throat he wishes his husband’s lips would take, a shiver knocking against Levi’s knuckles as it travels down Eren’s spine. “ _Sap_ ,” Eren mimics back, his voice thick and warm, as it something his happening inside his chest he can barely tame. Levi knows the feeling well. Levi hums in response, turning his head to kiss his husband, the love of his life, the ridiculously charming grad student he’d met years and years ago who had put the color back in his life and painted his grey skies back to blue.

Their lips meet like a force of nature, the gentle but inevitable kind; like the slow fall of snow overnight or the shift in weather into blue skies and spring blooms. Eren sighs against his mouth and Levi clutches them together and they get lost in the feeling of it, tongues curling together, their chests pressed so tightly together their hearts fall into sync like two puzzle pieces slotting together, no line to show they were ever separated.

“I love you,” Levi says, leaning back to find his hands in buried in Eren’s hair with no conscious memory of how they’d gotten there, making the frazzled rumbled look his husband has going on even _worse_. Levi feels there should be some remorse in this, but satisfaction curls in his gut instead, flushes his cheeks with heat as Eren echoes his words, one hand already beneath Levi’s shirt. “And you will be _great_ today at the press conference. So long, of course, as you remember to call the find by its scientific name and not Skittles like you did last week.”

Eren sputters and then flushes, ducking against Levi’s shoulder with a grumble that sounds a lot like _it was one time!_ Levi strokes his hair and laughs, kissing at his husband’s jawline before beginning the long and regretful process of untangling their limbs for good.

His husband is very unhelpful during this process, hooking his fingers into Levi’s belt loops and whining as he usually does when this happens. “ _Levi_ ,” he breathes, eyes dark, lips red from being kissed and bitten so much already. Levi is swayed, a little, but snorts quietly instead of giving him.

“The sawdust on your pants is already incriminating enough, love,” Levi points out, quite reasonably if he says so himself. “And the _last time_ we were caught back here, we were both tossed out on the steps and made sit through a presentation on the very _old_ and very _precious_ things housed in this room and how the consequences of disturbing or ‘ _dirtying’_ them would be Great and Very Dire.”

Eren’s nose wrinkles, the crinkles of crow-feet in the corners of his eyes becoming more pronounced and even more adorable than before. “Oh right,” Eren says, as if he had actually forgotten. He shudders a little bit, like the memory has just returned to him, and Levi swallows back a laugh. “That would be very, very bad with all the press around, wouldn’t it?”

Levi smiles, leaning up to peck the corner of Eren’s mouth once more, unable to resist. “Yes,” he says dryly, “it would be. But there will always be later, you know.”

“True,” Eren answers, still somewhat wistfully. He reaches up, tries to flatten his hair, and then realizes it’s beyond help, his lips twisting wryly before he laughs. Hands still in his hair, mouth still curling with mirth, Eren looks at Levi and asks, very quietly, “do you really think I can do this?”

“I do. And I always have,” Levi answers, reaching up to straighten his husband’s collar with careful and steady fingers. “Since the day we met.”

This, more than anything, seems to settle Eren; there is a visible straightening in his spine, a broadening of already broad shoulders, and the last of his nerves bleeds out of his face, quickly replaced by the excitement and determination Levi knows best.

“C’mon,” Eren says, grabbing Levi’s right hand and tugging him along as he leaves the storage workroom in long strides. “All those coffees have my bladder _screaming_ and I need your help taming my hair back down.”

“Gross,” Levi responds whole-heartedly as he twists his wrist to lace their fingers together, falling into step with his husband as they enter the hall. His hip bumps Eren’s and in the light of the hallway his wedding ring glints as he reaches up to push his bangs from his face, feeling his lips curve into a grin as Eren laughs.

“You love me,” Eren taunts softly, swinging their hands between them to emphasize his words. Levi squeezes his husband’s fingers, feeling the press of Eren’s wedding ring against his knuckles, shaking his head and laughing quietly as he does. On the other side of the wall the crowd’s noise is dull, almost impossible to hear if Levi didn’t already know how many people were out there, but in the hallway there is only the sound of their steps falling together and the sound of Eren’s laughter as he tucks it behind his teeth and grins.

“I do,” Levi says easily. “I really, really fucking do.”

(“I didn’t buy this,” Levi said, feeling his forehead furrow as he frowned at the kid behind the desk. The kid, dark side with close cropped hair and bright eyes, groaned, dragging his hands over his hair before flinging them above him with a strangled shout.

“You _practically have_ ,” the kid said, sounding tortured from head to toe. “You’ve been here _,_ like, _eight times_. Nobody comes to the museum eight times in a half a’month unless they _work here_. So, _please_ , just- _take it_. Take the membership! I’m tired of taking your money just to watch you moon around the exhibits! Take the membership and do us all a favor and just _ask him out_!”

Levi almost dropped the membership card he’d been handed and walked right back out the doors to the museum. He didn’t, though, and the reason wasn’t very hard to figure out when he thought about it, but he didn’t want to think about it. He was just some fucking washed up Creative Writing major and that guy in there – _Eren_ , his traitorous brain supplied, even his fucking _thoughts_ sounded lovesick – was some kind of _genius_ , okay, he was _bright_ and _brilliant_ and _really excited about dinosaurs_. And even though Levi _knew this_ , knew it from the tip of his toes to the ends of his hair, he still felt the little kernel of hope that had been building in his chest burst into bloom at the receptionist’s words.

 _Connie_ , the nametag said. Levi swallowed and curled his fingers around the card, the heat he expected to be in his cheeks absent. He breathed in, and out, and was glad there wasn’t a line behind him, or any kind of witnesses to the kid, Connie’s, outburst.

 _Do you think he’ll say yes_ , sat on the tip of Levi’s tongue, but he pulled it back and chewed it apart and spat out, “thanks,” instead. Connie just nodded, sinking back into the seat he had risen out of at some point, and gestured Levi away with a flap of his hand. Levi went, picking his way through the museum, quiet in its off hours of the day, knowing where Eren would be even though he wasn’t scheduled for a tour for another three hours.

Eren was, as he had always been when Levi came to the museum, gorgeous in his work clothes, a button up shirt with the sleeves rolled up and khaki pants. He was sitting in front of a bench of his favorite exhibit, the Desmatosuchus skeleton that had been put together nearly seventy years beforehand, which the museum owned on loan, a creature from the late Triassic period…

In truth at this point Levi knew more about the exhibits in the museum then about the boy with the glittering green eyes and eternally mused hair. But he wanted that to _change_. He wanted to know where Eren liked to eat and what he sounded like when he sung in the shower and if there was ever the possibility, even the _tiniest_ of possibilities, that Eren could want to know these things about Levi in turn.

 _A boy_ , he heard Isabel say in his mind, could see her lips curling as her anger dropped off her shoulders like a too big borrowed coat. _You were late to lunch because of a_ boy? _Oh my god! What’s his name?!_

Levi took a deep breath and then shook out his shoulders. He thought about Isabel’s excitement and the boy, Connie’s, frustration. He thought about Eren’s hands as they moved along with his explanations in the six different tours Levi had caught in two weeks. He thought about the way Eren sometimes smiled at him, lopsided and a little bemused, when he turned up last minute and joined his tour again and again.

He looked at Eren’s face as the boy traced the Desmatosuchus skeleton with his eyes, lost in thought, and clutched the museum’s membership card in his hand with a silent prayer.

“So,” Levi said, knowing his voice was rough and his manner abrupt as he stepped out from around the corner and up next to where Eren was sitting. Eren startled, hands falling from his lap as his shoulders jolted, and Levi’s breath whooshed from his lungs at the weight of those green eyes completely focused on him. He had to clear his throat, twice, to be able to speak again. “Do you ever name them?”

“Um,” Eren said, blinking at him, and _shit_ his eyelashes were long and gorgeous. Levi felt his cheeks finally heat, long and slow, embarrassingly pink, knowing his pale skin. He swallowed. “Excuse me?”

“The skeletons,” Levi clarified. His heart was thundering in his ears and his hands started to tremble, the edges of the membership card digging into his skin. “In the exhibits. Do you ever give them personal names?”

Something shifted on Eren’s face, a shift from confusion into something else, something edged like interest but dusting his golden skin pink like embarrassment. “Oh,” he said softly. He was the one to swallow this time, a motion Levi hated himself for being fascinated by. “Yeah, I- I do.”

Levi shifted, his weight rocking from his heels to the balls of his feet, and Eren, for some reason, shifted too, scooting down the bench to make Levi room. Carefully he sat, his hands in his lap just as Eren had been before he interrupted.

“What’s her name,” Levi asked, after a moment that seemed to last lifetimes. He felt so _stupid_ , but he was _here_ , actually fucking _talking to Eren_ , and he really, really did want to know. It was an idea that had occurred to him during one of the tours, when Eren had paused like he was going to say something else instead of _Desmatosuchus_ , and it hadn’t let Levi sit idle until he _knew_. “The Desmatosuchus,” he clarified, just in case Eren was confused again.

Silence stretched for a moment and after three heartbeats, four, five more, Levi turned to look at Eren. The boy next to him was twisted around, facing him and not the exhibit, and he was gaping, mouth open, eyes wide, his cheeks very pink and his eyebrows very, very high up on his forehead. Levi felt his own cheeks flush in surprise and embarrassment, his heart lurching up into his throat and then dropping down into his stomach as Eren swallowed.

“Hershey,” Eren said, loudly, sounding like the name came out of his mouth without his full permission. He flushed a darker color of red, all the way to his hairline, creeping to his ears, after he said it. Levi was fascinated. “I call her, uh. Hershey.”

Levi’s eyes fell to Eren’s mouth unbidden and he jerked them back up to catch green eyes, feeling his own blush creep down his throat toward his collarbones. “Like the kisses,” he blurted out in question.

The way Eren cleared his throat was so loud, Levi swore Connie could hear it out in the lobby. “Yeah,” he said softly, lowly. “Like the kisses.”

There was a lull, one where Levi expected Eren to clear his throat and leave, or turn back to the exhibit, or any number of things to happen that would cause his heart to stutter to a standstill and for this slowly blooming hope to crash and burn. But none of it happened. Instead Eren looked him down and then up, quick but intent, and then he pressed his palms along his thighs, a distracting movement, if an endearing one that implied, well, _nerves_.

“I have another tour in three hours,” Eren told him, unprompted. Levi blinked, bit his tongue on an _I know_ , and then ended up saying it anyway.

“I know,” he confessed quietly, looking away. “I asked for the tour schedule last week.”

Eren’s laughter during a tour had always been an almost careful sounding thing, but now, low and soft but not so controlled, it curled up Levi’s spine and settled around his throat like a noose. Levi glanced over, feeling doomed to his infatuation, and found Eren rubbing at the back of his neck, another endearing sign of nerves that Levi’s blooming hope grabbed hold of with both hands.

“That makes _so_ much sense,” Eren mumbled quietly. And then, meeting Levi’s eyes once more, he added, “would you like to, uh. Grab coffee or something? With me? Before my tour? You don’t have to, Levi, it’s just-”

All the air left Levi’s lungs and his shoulders slumped, his spine limp with relief. “I would _love_ to,” he breathed, knowing he was being embarrassing but unable to help himself. “I’m-“ He stopped, suddenly realized Eren had called him _by name_. Levi blinked, mouth still open, and Eren seemed to realize his mistake, his hands flying up to cover his mouth as horror overtook his eyes.

“You know my name,” Levi murmured, his chest clenching at the undeniable proof that _Eren had been interested in him_.

“I’m _so_ sorry,” Eren breathed, looking like he was ready to bolt or expire on the spot. “I, uh, went to the front desk, after the third time you showed up, and I asked Connie, and he said your receipt was signed _Levi_ , and I just-“

“Eren,” Levi said, the name bursting from behind his teeth, feeling like it had been sitting in wait on the back of his tongue for _years_. Eren stilled, his lips trembling, and just because he thought he could, Levi said it again. “ _Eren_. It’s okay. I don’t mind. Do you still want to get coffee?”

“Yes,” Eren answered. He smiled and it was like the sun had come out, a bright but bashful curl of lips that Levi found so, so charming. “I would, yeah, I- Let me go clock out, I’ll be right back, okay?”

“Okay,” Levi answered. “I’ll be waiting with Hershey then.”

His suspicions – or hypothesis, maybe he should say – was correct; Eren’s laughter was _even better_ when it was loud and untamed, ringing through the exhibit hall in a burst of surprised mirth. Eren motioned at him to not go anywhere as he ducked around the corner and Levi’s chest constricted, his tongue too tangled to tell the other boy that he couldn’t have gone anywhere if he _tried_ , rooted to this bench, still clutching the membership card too tightly to make sure this wasn’t a dream.

 _This is the most incredible thing to ever happen to me_ , Levi thought, watching Eren appear back from around the corner, even more flushed than before, with hair windswept and chest heaving from running, if the shouts following him were any indication. _If this is a dream, I hope I never have to wake up_.

“Ready,” Eren asked, running a hand through his hair, which tamed it absolutely not at all.

Levi cleared his throat and stood up, slipping the membership card in his back pocket before brushing his hands on his thighs in Eren’s earlier gesture. “Yes,” he said, and he meant it with all his heart.)

**Author's Note:**

> I had no idea what to do for this but _someone_ (a literal angel in human form, otherwise known as my baeb, my biggest inspiration t b h) suggested palentologist eren and then followed that statement up with "dinosaurs are animals". so there we have it folks, dinosaur lovin' eren!!!!
> 
> I hope you all enjoyed, I think this one is my favorite of this week's stuff so far ;)
> 
> (also if any one is curious, Levi writes adventure romance. like. Indiana Jones style adventure. he uses Eren as a "reference source" for how that kind of research is done and then usually ignores the more boring details for Excitement and Eren reads his books and goes "LANDSLIDES AREN'T COMMON DARLING" and Levi's like "listen. do I tell u how to find dinosaurs. smh" but YEAH lmao I love them goodbye)


End file.
